It’s been a week since election day. There’s no doubt I’m glad the elections are FINALLY over and we’re done with all those ads on tv, but I still wonder about a lot of things. Mostly I wonder how the newly elected will fulfill their campaign promises. Democrat, Independent, or Republican, they all have a lot of challenges to face in the coming years.
A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation. - James Freeman Clarke
For one thing, they’ve got a career choice to make. Each must decide if they are going to be a politician or a statesman. Unfortunately, I’m afraid the choices are actually long since made, and we have a plethora of politicians, and a scant number of statesmen.
Indeed, I had to wonder when I looked at the ballot, where are the good choices at election time? Where is someone with that magical combination of statesmanship, good moral values, good sense, vitality, and brains to run the country well?
We always want the best man to win an election. Unfortunately, he never runs. - Will Rogers
Or maybe it’s just hearing about the good ones. Did you hear much about the other people running for President of the U.S. besides McCain and Obama? There were a several other names on the ballot, but I sure didn’t hear beans about them beforehand. Who knows if they would have been any good?
No, it was all about the Republican and Democratic candidates, pretty much end of story. Candidates from another party haven’t got much of a chance, no matter how good a choice they might be for president. They don’t have the monetary resources to buy airtime and other ads, and the media isn’t going to bother covering their campaigns. They’re going where they think there’s a BIG story.
So that leaves us to choose between the two ruling parties who have a vested interest in staying in power. Given that pattern of maintaining the status quo, I know some who didn’t vote because they felt like it wasn’t worth electing any of the candidates, that it was just trying to choose the lesser evil, so why bother?
Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. - Jerry Garcia
Maybe there’s some merit in the NOTA platform of one candidate running for Tennessee State Senate. As in, we don’t like any of the above candidates, so we vote for None Of The Above. I’m sure there were a lot of people looking at a lot of different races and wondering who on earth was worth voting for, and if given the chance, might have checked a box saying NONE OF THE ABOVE. Try again. Reboot. Start over. There’s got to be some better choices!
Granted, there were some people totally enthusiastic about the candidate they were supporting. But there were also a lot of widely divergent viewpoints, for instance, as to how people felt about the candidates for President.
Some people thought McCain would do a good job, respected his past service, and felt he was sincere in wanting to do what was best for the country. Others thought he’d be a bad mistake, and shuddered at the thought of McCain/Palin at the helm. Then there are some who just had a knee-jerk reaction and voted for the opposite party, looking for change and it didn’t matter who it was.
But the reactions I’ve heard about Obama, well, let’s just say there was a wider variation there. MUCH wider.
From the blogs and articles I’ve read, the people I talked to, and other media sources, the reaction has been everything from wholeheartedly embracing the idea of him as president, to those who are not just concerned, but actually downright scared to think of him running the country.
A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation. - James Freeman Clarke
For one thing, they’ve got a career choice to make. Each must decide if they are going to be a politician or a statesman. Unfortunately, I’m afraid the choices are actually long since made, and we have a plethora of politicians, and a scant number of statesmen.
Indeed, I had to wonder when I looked at the ballot, where are the good choices at election time? Where is someone with that magical combination of statesmanship, good moral values, good sense, vitality, and brains to run the country well?
We always want the best man to win an election. Unfortunately, he never runs. - Will Rogers
Or maybe it’s just hearing about the good ones. Did you hear much about the other people running for President of the U.S. besides McCain and Obama? There were a several other names on the ballot, but I sure didn’t hear beans about them beforehand. Who knows if they would have been any good?
No, it was all about the Republican and Democratic candidates, pretty much end of story. Candidates from another party haven’t got much of a chance, no matter how good a choice they might be for president. They don’t have the monetary resources to buy airtime and other ads, and the media isn’t going to bother covering their campaigns. They’re going where they think there’s a BIG story.
So that leaves us to choose between the two ruling parties who have a vested interest in staying in power. Given that pattern of maintaining the status quo, I know some who didn’t vote because they felt like it wasn’t worth electing any of the candidates, that it was just trying to choose the lesser evil, so why bother?
Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. - Jerry Garcia
Maybe there’s some merit in the NOTA platform of one candidate running for Tennessee State Senate. As in, we don’t like any of the above candidates, so we vote for None Of The Above. I’m sure there were a lot of people looking at a lot of different races and wondering who on earth was worth voting for, and if given the chance, might have checked a box saying NONE OF THE ABOVE. Try again. Reboot. Start over. There’s got to be some better choices!
Granted, there were some people totally enthusiastic about the candidate they were supporting. But there were also a lot of widely divergent viewpoints, for instance, as to how people felt about the candidates for President.
Some people thought McCain would do a good job, respected his past service, and felt he was sincere in wanting to do what was best for the country. Others thought he’d be a bad mistake, and shuddered at the thought of McCain/Palin at the helm. Then there are some who just had a knee-jerk reaction and voted for the opposite party, looking for change and it didn’t matter who it was.
But the reactions I’ve heard about Obama, well, let’s just say there was a wider variation there. MUCH wider.
From the blogs and articles I’ve read, the people I talked to, and other media sources, the reaction has been everything from wholeheartedly embracing the idea of him as president, to those who are not just concerned, but actually downright scared to think of him running the country.
At one extreme there are people talking about Obama like he’s some kind of Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Rosa Parks and savior rolled up into one fantastic package, while others wonder about his past associations and mega-liberal voting record, and at the other extreme end, there are even some who so totally mistrust him they compare him to Hitler.
Overall, we seem to be a widely divided nation. Looking at the map of how the states populations voted, it looks like the south and most of the middle parts of the U.S. are in one group, leaning more towards the conservative, while in New England and the western U.S. folks seem to be of a more liberal bent.
Map of Electoral Votes
I wonder if we can we find a middle ground that will be acceptable for the most part to most people. Or are our viewpoints of what would be the right and wrong things to do so far apart as to make that impossible?
Like I said, I wonder about a lot of things. Mostly I wonder where all of this will lead, and what the politicians will do to this country in the next 4 years. I wish I could say I was optimistic about changes on the whole for the better in this country, but I don’t really hold out much hope for that. I wish I felt the economy, world view, ecology, human rights and many more issues would be vastly improved in the coming years.
But I’m uneasy. I don’t think we’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel yet.
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